


no more nightmares

by sarahenany



Category: The World's End (2013)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:33:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany/pseuds/sarahenany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ABSOLUTE SHAMELESS H/C following from my fic in this same fandom, <i>Walk, Don't Run. </i>DO NOT READ unless you are in the mood for SHAMELESS FLUFFY WALLOW. Clear? Good.<br/>...That said, Gary has a nightmare and Andy comforts him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no more nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> For my friend Oksana, the Ultimate World's End Guru.

It was somewhere round quarter-past three. Or thereabouts -the old grandfather clock that was the camp's Big Ben had chimed three and not yet hit the half-hour, anyroad.

The world's end hadn't quite managed to cure Andy of being a deep sleeper, more so when Gary and his family were in arm's reach. He was reassured of the safety of his family, though, even if he was far away from them in a tent in the middle of nowhere, which was why it took him a while to drift up from the comforting cradle of sleep. When he did, it was to an alarming jolt, then sustained shaking, from the warm bundle in his arms.

Gary.

Andy felt it as every muscle in Gary's body tightened like a bowstring. Gary's back arched, then a shudder, then another. "No—" Gary choked.

"Gary. Gary," Andy said urgently, keeping his arms round him and shaking. "Wake up, come on. You're dreaming. Gary!"

"No!" A final, alarming full-body shiver, and Gary jerked awake. Andy could feel it as Gary shrank into himself, making himself smaller in Andy's embrace.

"It's all right. It's all right." Andy held on to Gary. In the dark, he could see his friend's face turning away. "Want to tell me about it?"

"Sorry."

"Shut it, ya daft sod. What's there to be sorry about?"

"Woke you up." Gary took a long, shaky breath. "Should've known I'd wake you."

Andy let the implications of that sink in for a minute. "You…" He kept his voice carefully neutral, light. "You get these often, then?"

"Well…"

Gary trailed off, and Andy felt him deflate a little more. He was struck afresh by just how bloody thin Gary was, how they really needed to try and put some meat on his bones. Last time when Andy'd carried him, when his leg had given out, it'd been too easy. He was still too light, far too light. If he wasn't getting enough sleep, though, that could begin to explain it. "How often?" Andy said sternly.

"Well." Gary fidgeted, dislodging the blanket. Andy caught it before it could slip off, tucked it around Gary's back. Pneumonia, that was all they needed. "A lot."

"Every night," Andy said flatly.

Gary nodded. Andy fancied he could see a bit of shame in there. "Sorry."

"Want to talk about it?" When Gary hesitated, Andy added, "Doesn't make a blind bit of difference if you do or you don't, you know. You're going to tell me anyway."

"I am, eh?"

"Yeah." As he said it, Andy felt what little defiance there'd been in Gary drain out of him, and he added, "It's not like we don't all have 'em, it's nothing to be ashamed of. End of the world and all that. Everyone in the camp's got something or other. Tamsin was in a fire, barely got out alive. Karen lost her leg when her house fell on her, lost her man and her baby, too. Bobby—"

"The bar," Gary whispered against Andy's shirt, so low Andy could barely hear it. Sensibly, he shut his mouth and waited.

"There were so many of them," Gary went on after a pause. He paused to breathe before he went on. "So fucking many. Never had a chance." He swallowed. "Andy… It was… You can't imagine it. People die in accidents, but this…"

Gary was silent for such a long time that Andy said, gently, "Go on."

"They killed—they _murdered_ all the blanks, all of them. Murdered 'em, Andy. They know they can regenerate, but… not without the Network. They smashed their heads, their bodies, shattered 'em to bloody smithereens. T

hey were good kids, good kids. And they…" Gary gulped, then shook his head. A thin, high-pitched cry sounded in the space between them, whistling out deep in Gary's chest. He gritted his teeth and arched his head back, muscles clenching in an attempt to resist, but the sound pushed its way out of him, catching and breaking in an ugly sob. Another followed it, and another, and then Gary was sobbing full-voiced, head turned away. "They killed you, Andy. They fucking killed you _again_ and I had to _watch_ and I couldn'—" Andy felt Gary's fingers clutch for purchase in the back of his jumper as Gary cried, high and keening, raised his own hand to cup the back of Gary's head as he shuddered and sobbed.

"It's all right," he said, squeezing Gary tight, rubbing his head. "I'm sorry. Bastards. It's all right."

"Couldn't do anything about it. Couldn't…" Andy felt it as Gary's body jerked again. "It—" Gary bit back his words, teeth clicking shut with an audible _snap._

"What?" asked Andy gently. When there was no answer, he put a little firmness into his tone. "Gary. Out with it."

Gary shook his head. "Stupid."

"Gary." Andy cuffed the back of Gary's head, very, very gently. "That's an order."

That had the intended effect of making Gary laugh, just a little. "Oh yeah?"

"Gary." Andy's voice was sober. "I won't… you know, judge you. Just tell me."

There was a long sigh in the darkness, and Gary's body tensed, as though he was physically steeling himself. "I almost didn’t… I mean."

A cold tendril coiled around Andy's heart, even though he knew this, had had gary say it to him before. "Almost didn't… fight for your life?"

A short, dry laugh, devoid of humor, burst from Gary. "Fight? No fear of that," he breathed. "Wasn't much fighting about it. We were outnumbered the minute we stepped in the bar. Dozens of 'em, and the puny ones were a couple hundred kilos, packed with bloody muscle. Got 'Human' scarified on their Goddamned foreheads." He took a breath. Andy noticed, with some relief, that he'd stopped crying. "No, it…"

"Go on."

"I almost didn't want to. I mean…" Andy stayed silent.

When Gary spoke again, his voice was flat, ponderous. "Said they'd start," he said, "with breaking my ribs. They… this was after they'd um," the flat tone faltered a little, and he swallowed hard, "murdered them. Murdered my friends. All of them." A strangely false, light laugh. "Blanks anyway, who cares, right? But then they had to punish the blank-lover. So they held me down to the ground by the arms and legs. And then… with um, boots. Took turns. Some with the kicking technique, some with the, um, stamping technique. Yeah." Gary gave an embarrassed half-laugh, but it was Andy's turn to shudder, feeling the hairs on his limbs suddenly stand on end. "They liked it. Laughed when they heard 'em crack. Then they started mucking around saying they'd give me a facelift…"

Andy closed his eyes, head swimming, as Gary's words suddenly swirled into an image of Gary being held down, men with heavy boots stamping on his chest. He opened his eyes with a gasp and loosened his grip on Gary, irrationally afraid of hurting him, though his shattered ribs had been healed for a year or more. Thank God, Gary hadn't noticed, too caught up in his tale.

"You're a team leader, you know what it's like," Gary was saying, "to be responsible for people. How you feel when somebody gets hurt, or somebody dies. One of your team, I mean. You always were the responsible one, Andy. I never told you this, but I always looked up to you. Always."

Andy managed a grunt and a nod. Later the words would come back to him and fill him with a glow of quiet joy, but for now his head was too full of images of Gary being kicked and stamped on till he was barely alive. His own nightmares were filled with the sight of Gary broken and bleeding, only in the dreams he didn't survive. "Mmm."

Gary nodded. "So you… I thought you of all people would know how that feels. To deserve it."

Andy's stomach dropped. "Er—Come again? I think I missed something."

"Aw, you know." Gary lowered his head, the top of his head brushing Andy's chest. "What I said. That's why I almost didn't want to live through it. Because I'd led them in there. I'd got them all killed. So that… what happened to me? Served me bloody well right."

Andy blinked in shock.

"I was their leader. I should have kept them safe."

"You're not Superman, you know."

Gary shook his head. "Got them killed. Got them all killed. Even… the blank-you. He remembered some of it, you know. Not all of it, he wasn't you—" Gary was choking up again, and Andy rubbed his back. It seemed to help, and he went on after a moment. "He only remembered some things, from back at school, he didn't know all the shit we'd been through. After. But I'd've fucking died rather than see you die again. And it wasn't just you, it was all of them. I think I went a little mad."

There was no room for jokes like _You've always been a little mad,_ so Andy held his peace.

"It hurt so much. So bloody much, every time one of them stepped on—where one of his mates had stamped before—must have been already broken, and um…" Gary was shaking. Andy's eyes burned. "And all I could think was, I earned it, I got them killed, I fucking earned it."

"Silly idiot," Andy murmured. That Gary had thought he _deserved_ this—

"There was this big bloke who took my sword, I had a fucking big sword and he took it and started swinging. Got my leg, you know that," Gary sounded ashamed of his infirmity, and Andy wanted to tell him how fucking perfect it was that he was still with them and that every day was a bloody gift but now wasn't the time and… "And he kept swinging it, catching my face, and I swear to God, Andy, I thought I was going to die. No, I knew it. I was so frightened. I stopped being fucking Gary King a long time ago but fuck I was so fucking frightened, Andy, when you can see it coming and you know—"

"It's all right," Andy murmured. "It's all right." He'd opened the floodgates and damned if he didn't want to close them again, it was just too hard to hear this. He squeezed Gary tightly, feeling the skinny body tremble, but feeling, too, how his own body – he'd lost flesh but he was still soft enough to cushion Gary – absorbed Gary's shakes. Felt, like a lifeline, how Gary's arms wrapped around him. Tears had started to soak through Andy's shirt again. "I knew I deserved it but it hurt so much. Hurt so bloody much that I started hoping I'd croak and then I thought what kind of a fucking coward am I, said I wanted to live to see Andy again and now just letting go… but I couldn't…"

"You didn't deserve it," Andy murmured into Gary's hair, still squeezing him as tight as he could. "Never. That's just how it feels when someone you're responsible for gets hurt. Or dies. They lived longer than they would have if they hadn't had you to protect them."

Gary nodded and then he was sobbing again, somewhere into Andy's collarbone. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "Got them killed. Ruined everything."

"Gary." Andy tried to make his voice firm. "You saved the bleeding world, you stubborn ass. Whatever's happened, it would have happened anyway. So you made mistakes, so what? You think anybody's perfect?"

Gary's arms tightened around Andy, and he took a shuddering breath. Andy fancied he could feel a lessening of the tension in Gary's frame, and resolved to let him know more often and more clearly that all was forgiven. He pressed Gary closer to him, felt him sink into his belly, stroked his head. "It's all right. You've suffered enough. But even if you hadn't—you didn't have—there's no bloody _way_ you should have been beaten half to death. You didn't deserve to— to be punished for anything. "

"I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," said Andy gently. And he knew, with a shock, that he meant it.

It was as though a weight fell away from him as he absorbed the feeling. Maybe years ago he would have wanted to hit Gary –punch him, make him hurt, for the betrayal, the abandonment, for all he'd done to Andy, all he'd made him suffer. But it all seemed so small and irrelevant now. Andy had to close his eyes and cling to Gary tight, feeling the answering squeeze, _lifeline,_ as his mind whirled. So much, so many years, so much pain, so much rage and loss, and yet the minute Gary told him he'd been held down and beaten Andy wanted to go out like fucking Rambo and put a bullet into each of the men who'd hurt him. Well, if there had still been bullets, of course. The protective warmth that surged through him, the desire to shield, to protect – that was far, far older than any fights. Maybe as old as humanity.

That had to count for something. And being here and alive and with the people you loved. That counted, too.

Andy let the warmth of his friend's thin body in his arms soothe him, felt his own shoulders relax as the clutch of Gary's skinny arms around his back comforted and calmed him. "No more nightmares, that's an order," he said tenderly, moving his hand in a slow, gentle rhythm up and down Gary's knobby spine, feeling Gary's breathing slowing and evening out with the catharsis, the last of the tremors easing under Andy's touch. "No more nightmares. Not anymore."


End file.
